INFORMATION: itinerary

Friday 20th:

Fly from Madrid. Meet at 7.30pm on 20th February at the Air Algerie counter in the new Terminal 4 building of Barajas Airport, Madrid. The plane will make a technical stop at Oran, but normally we don’t need to get out of the plane. The visa will be a collective visa which we will have obtained for you. From Tindouf, we will be driven by jeep into the desert and to a camp called Smara, one hour away. Here we will be distributed to our host families.
 

Saturday 21st: 

Race registration, free time to explore Smara camp, visit the museum, and the capital, Rabuni, and eat with the families. 

Sunday 22nd:

Breakfast and lunch with the families, and ‘pasta party’ in the evening. Instructions for the next day’s events.

Monday 23rd: 

Breakfast at the Protocol building. Marathon, and evening winners ceremony.

Tuesday 24th: 

Drive to Dajhla, the most remote camp, to look around. 

Wednesday 25th: 

Look around hospitals, schools and other sites of interest in Dajhla. Children’s run - hundreds of children will race in the sand, many of them bare feet.

Thursday 26th: 

Back to Smara, for more excursions, if there is time.
 

Friday 27th: 

This is National Day, with a big parade, and a good photo opportunity. Fly to Madrid over night.

INFORMATION: How much will it cost?

Those of you that have already registered their serious interest with Sandblast will have received their pack with all these information.

To recap and for all other blog visitors, the costs total to about £828.

This breaks down into the following costs:

• Air Algerie plane ticket £500 (if you sign up before Nov 15th)
• Visa £28 (subject to fluctuation)
• Registration fee for race:  £100 (This fee includes a contribution made to children’s sporting facility in the camps)
• Accommodation/food/local transport (for the week): £150
• Sandblast admin: £50 (this admin fee ensures that all your fundraising money goes to the projects in the camps

MAP: race route from El-Ayoun to Smara

With thanks to Saharamarathon.org, this satellite image will give you a better idea of where you will start (and finish).

How to...RAISE FUNDS

There are various ways to raise funds for your race in the desert, both online and offline. You can be as (un)creative as you want as long as you achieve your personal target. To help you get started, we came up with a list of opportunities to raise money that you are welcome to add to.

ONLINE

Justgiving. Sandblast is a charity on Justgiving. To create your own fundraising site and raise funds for Sandblast, you need to affiliate your site with ours. To do so, you go to www.justgiving.com/sandblast and click "make your page" on the left side menu. Follow the instructions, upload a nice picture of you, write a little text about yourself and your aims and invite your friends, family and colleagues to donate for your adventure race. If you have trouble with any of this, don't hesitate to contact us.

To help you making your Justgiving page public, you can

• create a facebook group: If you've already got a facebook profile, you just need to create a group that explains your project and links to your justgiving page. You can make it your status, send messages to your facebook friends. If you haven't got a facebook profile, it may not be worth it to create one as it will take some time for you to befriend people to send/communicate your justgiving page to
• email the link to your address book and ask your friends, family and colleagues to donate as much as they want
• add the link to your email signature, so everytime you email somebody, they have the link ready to donate a few pounds
  
• tweed your justgiving page link
• make a poster and hang it up on your blackboard at work, the nursery/school of your kid, your university
  

OFFLINE

There are endless fundraising opportunities and it would be great to hear from you what you have done to raise money for your trip to the refugee camps:

• Auction an item on Ebay
  
• Hold a bingo night
• Bake cakes and cookies and sell them to your friends, family and colleagues
• Send e-cards instead of Christmas cards and donate the amount you would have spent purchasing and sending these
• Have a pub-quiz and ask all groups to register for a minimal fee
• Hold a raffle
• Invite your friends over for a themed dinner, they’ll pay a set amount

Do you have any ideas?